BSNL CMD Purwar denied extension, DoT officer Robert Ravi to get additional charge

NEW DELHI: The government has denied extension to BSNL Chairman and Managing Director P K Purwar and has given the charge to a senior department of telecom officer Robert J Ravi, official sources said.

Purwar, who took charge as BSNL CMD in July 2019 for five years, had applied for an extension which was rejected by the Department of Telecom.

An Appointment Committee of Cabinet (ACC) order said it has approved the DoT proposal for "non-extension of tenure" of BSNL CMD Pravin Kumar Purwar beyond July 14.

The ACC approved DoT's proposal for "entrustment of additional charge of the post of CMD BSNL, along with CMD MTNL, and CMD BBNL in favour of Shri Ravi A Robert Jerard, DDG (SRI) for a period of six months with effect from July 15, 2024 till January 14, 2025, or until further orders, whichever is earlier".

During Purwar's tenure, the government provided three revival packages of more than Rs 3 lakh crore to turn around BSNL and enable it to compete with Reliance Jio, Airtel, etc, with the rollout of 4G and 5G services.

The first package of Rs 69,000 crore was approved in October 2019 that included about Rs 51,000-52,000 crore for BSNL.

It was mainly to fund a voluntary retirement scheme of the company to help it reduce wage burden, purchase of 4G spectrum and restructuring of debt.

Thereafter, Purwar was given the charge of sister concern MTNL as well.

In 2022, the government approved a second revival package for BSNL-MTNL, amounting to Rs 1.64 lakh crore.

The second package provided financial support for capex, viability gap funding for rural landlines, financial support for de-stressing the balance sheet, and settlement of AGR dues, merger of BBNL with BSNL, etc.

The third revival package for BSNL with the total outlay of Rs 89,047 crore was approved in June 2023 that provided support for allotment of 4G/5G spectrum for BSNL through equity infusion.

Despite all relief packages, BSNL has only rolled out 4G services in the Punjab circle.

The company has been given a mandate to deploy 4G and 5G using indigenous technologies. A consortium led by Tata Consultancy Services and state-run C-DoT has bagged the project for rolling out 4G and 5G services using indigenously developed technologies.

Purwar had said BSNL will roll out 4G services at the pan-India level by June 2024, but has not been able to keep up with the timeline.

During Purwar's tenure, BSNL mobile subscriber share declined from 9.98 per cent in July 2019 to 7.46 per cent as of April 2024.

The mobile subscriber base of the company has fallen to 8.6 crore in April 2024 from 11.64 crore in July 2019.

Ravi, an Indian Telecom Service officer with 34 years of experience in the telecom sector, will have the challenge of expediting rollout of 4G services and arrest decline in subscriber base.

This will be Ravi's second stint at BSNL. Earlier, he had served as an additional general manager at the state-run firm for about six years.